Category Archives: Design

Pilgrimage Stamps

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In my Japan sketchbooks, my favorite page contains neither personal notes nor drawings but rather a pilgrimage “stamp” from Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple and UNESCO World Heritage site in Kyoto. It was and still is customary for pilgrims in Japan to collect these stamps in a book from each Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine visited. While some temples may only give stamps, at others a temple priest will hand-draw the temple’s “signature” in the pilgrim’s book for a small fee, as was done here. Beautiful calligraphy, artfully composed.

The If Project

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Detective Kim Bogucki of the Seattle Police Department initiated the If Project by posing the simple question: What if…?, and Renata Abramson, an inmate at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, promoted it among her fellow offenders. See <http://www.theifproject.com/why-if/> for the powerful and moving stories that resulted. (Note the following from the website: “…the women participating do not intend to excuse or dismiss responsibility for any of the crimes committed. Rather, they intend to take full responsibility and choose to look deeply into their past to learn what led them to this place.”)

When Jackie Helfgott, professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Seattle University, told Kim about the Seattle Urban Sketchers group, Kim suggested that we offer a drawing workshop at the monthly session of the If Project to offer another way for the women at WCCW to express themselves. And so Tuesday evening, eight Seattle Urban Sketchers visited WCCW for a few hours.

We didn’t know what to expect as we checked in and walked through the series of secured gates and doors. Upon meeting the group of more than 40 women, Gabi Campanario first asked what their expectations were. Some had drawing experience; many did not. “I can’t draw” was a common refrain, to which Gabi replied: As long as you can hold a pen or pencil and make a mark on paper, you can draw. So one goal of the workshop was to instill confidence and make drawing an enjoyable and reflective activity.

Gabi gave them several warm-up exercises, which then led to more varied choices of media and subject matter. While some women continued drawing from observation, others veered off to drawing from the imagination. It didn’t matter since drawing is essentially a form of visual expression, no matter what media we use or to what end we draw. The women were engaged, friendly, and perceptive, and many shared their aspirations. To paraphrase what one woman said after the workshop: Drawing took me away from where I am for a few hours.

Here is a quick sketch of one group drawing and a photo with Tre, who had asked me to sketch her portrait. I hope it was as gratifying for the women who attended the workshop as it was for us to be there for a few hours. On the drive back to Seattle, it was difficult to process my thoughts but what struck me the most was that we could return home afterwards and the women could not.

Inge Druckrey: Teaching to See

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Edward Tufte has crafted a beautiful documentary of Inge Druckrey teaching her students how to see, which can be viewed at <https://vimeo.com/45232468> or <http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/>. It’s 37 minutes long but well worth the time to view in its entirety. While Druckery’s insightful and empathetic lessons are clearly appropriate for the education of visual designers, we can also apply many of the basic principles to drawing on location because learning to see—not simply the acquisition of technique—is truly the key to learning how to draw from observation.

Architecture for Humanity

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Architecture for Humanity is “…a nonprofit organization founded in 1999 to promote architectural and design solutions to global, social, and humanitarian crises. Through design/build projects, competitions, workshops, educational forums, partnerships with aid organizations and other activities, Architecture for Humanity creates opportunities for architects and designers from around the world to help communities in need. We believe that where resources and expertise are scarce, innovative, sustainable and collaborative design can make a difference.”

I quote this because the nonprofit is currently hosting a charity auction on eBay of drawings, paintings, and other artwork by a number of designers and architects, which ends on June 29. Check it out at:

http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=architectureforhumanity

Here is a sketch of the Gothic Cathedral in Barcelona that I submitted for the charity event but It is not available for online bidding since it was actually raffled off at the AIA convention in May. Even if you’re not interested in purchasing anything, the auction site is worth perusing to see some interesting work by well-known designers, all donated for a good cause.

An Introduction to Architecture

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Have not been able to post this past week since I’ve been busy working on a new book project, a general introduction to architecture distilled from a number of my previous publications: Architecture: Form, Space and Order, Architectural Graphics, Building Construction Illustrated, A Global History of Architecture, A Visual Dictionary of Architecture, and Interior Design Illustrated. My co-author, James Eckler, is helping me compile an abbreviated but coherent collection of material that would introduce students to the art, science, and discipline of architecture. Still a lot more work to do but here is a sample two-page spread from the chapter on elements and systems that inform architectural design.

Three Views of the Fremont Bridge

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The Fremont Bridge opened in 1917 and continues to open about 30 times a day for boat traffic traversing the Ship Canal connecting Lake Union to the Puget Sound. In 1982 it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places along with the higher George Washington Memorial Bridge seen in the background. More commonly known as the Aurora Bridge, the steel cantilever-and-truss bridge carries State Route 99 across the west end of Lake Union.

This view is of the bridge as it serves as the south gateway to Fremont. The drawbridge is called a double-leaf bascule because it uses counterweights to continuously balance the two spans as they swing upward to provide clearance for the traffic passing beneath it.

Finally, we see the bridge from the Burke-Gilman Trail that passes beneath it on the north side of the Ship Canal. These three views remind us to evaluate our three-dimensional environments, especially the buildings and other artifacts of a city’s infrastructure, from different points of view.

Urban Hubs

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Most major cities have one or more hubs where people gather because of the fortuitous mix of transport systems and civic, cultural, and commercial amenities. Here are views of three.

The first is of Shibuya, a center of shopping and nightlife located just outside one of Tokyo’s busiest railway stations. The bustling intersection is dominated by large video news and advertising screens and a sea of people using the “scramble” mode to cross in every direction at the same time while all vehicular traffic is stopped.

The second is of Times Square in the entertainment and Broadway theater district of midtown Manhattan. Again, the brightly lit environment is dominated by the gathering mass of people at ground level and the visual onslaught of oversized electronic billboards.

The third is of the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Though not of the scale of Shibuya and Times Square, this market entrance still serves as an iconic attraction for both Seattleites and visitors from abroad. In each case, it is not the architecture of individual buildings but rather the urban spaces created by the architecture and the overhead visuals that make these attractive urban hubs.

Bruge Rooftops

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I’m resurrecting this from my Facebook posting of March 12, 2010, which has mysteriously vanished into the ether. This is a whimsical sheet that I composed in Bruges, Belgium, back in 1999. Being attracted to the variety of features that crowned the rooftop gables in the historic city center, I started the page with dotted lines to suggest a sheet of stamps. As I began, I also decided to incorporate numbers into the composition of each image, like the monetary values of postage stamps. An example of how we sometimes draw for the sheer enjoyment of the experience.

Studies of a Japanese Folk House

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Another example of drawing from the imagination while on location. In this case, I was intrigued by the tectonic qualities of this Gassho-zukuri style house in the Hida Folk Village (Kida-no-Sato) just outside of Takayama. While walking through the interior spaces and visualizing a section cut through the structure, I drew the timber framing for the floors and the steep thatched roof and noted the way members were tied and braced. In this way, I was able to better understand and remember how material, structure, and construction came together to shape the architectural qualities of the spaces.

On the same page you can also see studies of the scale of the space created by the overhanging thatched roof along the eaves as well as sketches of types of traditional Japanese storehouses that I had observed.

These are all examples of how drawing from observation (on location) can serve as a springboard for drawing from the imagination (in design).

Storyboarding

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Before I began using a computer in the early 1990’s to design and layout my books—before Aldus Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign—I produced camera-ready pages by hand using white bond paper, a Scripto pencil with 1.1 mm leads, and a couple of drafting triangles. Later, I switched to Clearprint paper and 0.3 and 0.5 mm lead pencils but the hand-lettering and hand-drawing process remained essentially the same.

For me, the way a book is laid out and organized is an essential part of the message and so I often storyboarded my ideas before developing the final pages. Here is a sample storyboard for Drawing: A Creative Process. Even though the content and layout often changed as ideas were refined with lots of yellow trace overlays, storyboarding was an essential step in the book design process.

The beginning phase is always the most exciting time for a book project, involving floating a lot of ideas and experiencing false starts as well as a lot of trials and numerous errors, but once the basic structure of a book’s organization is established in outline form, the real and time-consuming work of production begins. And for that, I am happy to be able to use Adobe InDesign and the Tekton font.